


the list.

by outpastthemoat



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bunker Fic, Fluff, M/M, MOL HQ, Men of Letters Headquarters, Schmoop, Season Eight AU, Toothbrush Sharing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-30
Updated: 2013-05-30
Packaged: 2017-12-13 10:39:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/823342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/outpastthemoat/pseuds/outpastthemoat





	the list.

Sam leaves the hospital papers on the fridge, held in place by a magnetic clipboard, and every time Dean goes to grab a beer he can’t help but eyeball the lines at the bottom of the page that Sam’s circled with red ink: 

_ADOPTION OF THIS ANGEL IS NOT FINAL UNTIL CHECKLIST IS COMPLETE AND APPROVED BY A CASEWORKER._

Dean’s tangoed with the law before, but never like this.

The government’s been quick to handle _this_ particular disaster; Dean wonders how much of that is due to the scattered nests of leviathan they haven’t bothered to eradicate, since these leftovers seem mainly concerned with infiltrating Washington D.C., taking over politicians’ penthouse apartments and amusing themselves by filibustering the senate for weeks on end and spending their donation funds on purchasing entire Caribbean islands (Charlie’s checked).

What might have been a disaster is now fact, plain and simple:  Angels fell, and then woke up in hospitals all over the world, wearing the bodies of coma patients, the brain-dead and the recently-deceased. 

The question of what to do with the angels was a problem.  The solution that the hospitals seem to have settled on is to foster them out like litters of abandoned puppies.

The hastily-created paperwork states that the angel that he, Dean Winchester, has adopted is not legally the person whose form he’s taken.  This tidbit of legality is because some families of those recently-deceased and formerly brain-dead patients have elected to adopt the angels currently inhabiting their brothers, fathers, uncles, sisters, and wives. 

Dean thinks this might be a disaster in the making, but he’s not making the rules this time; he’d had to jump through the hoops just like any other civilian in this case.  Tracking down Cas to a hospital somewhere in the middle of upstate New york, tearing across six states to pick him up the next day; waiting impatiently in the cramped office of the hospital’s social worker, signing the paperwork and letting Cas take half an hour to figure out exactly what he wanted his legal name to be. 

The social worker shakes both their hands and thanks Dean for taking Cas off her caseload.  Dean hates that she seemed to be under the impression that in taking Cas home he’s being some sort of good Samaritan.  

“I’m sure you’ll be a responsible caregiver,” she says to him. 

He buys Cas ice cream for lunch.

He also buys Cas flowers, because he thinks that this is a super shitty way to come into the world, and Cas holds the vase carefully as Dean drives them home.

Dean stares, now, at the paperwork on the fridge, a beer in hand.  The rest of the forms include an itemized list of Things to Do with your newly fallen angel.

Sam’s circled the first one:  _ACCLIMATIZE YOUR ANGEL TO HUMAN CONTACT._

According to the literature, _a_ ngels need regular hugs or they’ll turn into mass murderers.  Dean doesn’t think the literature’s wrong about this.  The bulletins underneath suggest appropriate forms of human contact to include in the acclimatization process.  _Facial touching_ is on the list.

Sam has also stated, in bold red Sharpie underneath the heading, that he wants no part in this particular activity.

So Dean sighs and goes to find Cas.

He locates Cas in one of the bunker’s storage rooms.  He’s not going through the boxes or cataloging objects, he’s just sort of standing hunched and quiet in a a corner of the room. 

He stares at the floor, all slitty-eyed and radiating a definite air of _don’t-touch-me_ when Dean walks in.  That’s probably because he hasn’t forgiven Dean yet for all the yelling earlier, after it came out that he’s been using Dean’s toothbrush for the past two weeks.

“I didn’t know it was your toothbrush,” Cas mutters to the floor before Dean can say anything, and well, _shit_.  He’s probably going to complain about mistreatment the next time the social worker visits, and Dean will have to watch him being carted away to live with someone else, someone who’ll feed him something other than hamburgers and ice cream and beer and buy him his own damn toothbrush so he won’t feel the need to steal anybody else’s. 

Dean can’t let that happen, even if it does mean sharing a toothbrush with Cas for the rest of his life.

“I have to touch your face today,” Dean explains, and Cas just stares at him with a vast, angelic suspicion.

“Right now?” Cas asks, frowning as though he’s in the _middle of something_ even though Dean knows perfectly well that he’s not.  He _knows_ Cas has read the list.  He’s seen Cas staring at the list for minutes on end, blocking the path to the fridge and refusing to budge an inch no matter how urgently Dean needs mayo.  Cas knows today is _facial-touching_ day and he’s hiding away in the depths of the bunker, presumably hoping Dean won’t find him, or won’t want to go looking.

“ _Dude._ Yes, now.”  Dean grabs Cas’s shoulders and half-hauls him around.  Now Cas just looks pissy.  Well, if Cas can’t stand shoulder-grabbing, then he’s probably not going to appreciate _facial touching._ He hadn’t much enjoyed the _full-body hugs_ Sam had attempted the day before yesterday, either. 

He pushes Cas across the storage room and sits him down on a box.  It’ll be easier like this, working under the dim lighting, letting shadows fall over over Cas’s eyes. Cas lets himself be manhandled.  Dean supposes that’s the point of the checklist, the goal he’s working towards: Manhandling Cas, in very nearly every conceivable way. 

Dean sits on a box across from Cas, who drops his hands primly in his lap and hunches in on himself, slumping forward.  “This isn’t personal,” Dean tells him.

Cas looks heavenward. Dean’s not sure if it’s supposed to be an eyeroll or not. “Of course it isn’t.”

Dean steels himself and reaches out to touch him.

It’s weird.  Of course it’s weird.  Dean’s touching Cas’s face, and Cas is enduring it.  Dean cups his hands around Cas’s cheeks, holding his jaw, fingers almost brushing into Cas’s hair. It’s the first thing that comes to mind when Dean thinks of touching Cas’s face.  Maybe because Cas held _his_ face like this, once.  That hadn’t felt nearly as strange as Dean feels now.   Broken bones he can handle, split lips and black eyes and bruises.  He’s not so sure about this.  They know how to hurt each other in every way possible, but this is something new.

He rubs his thumbs across Cas’s cheekbones slowly.  Cas’s face is still under his touch, but his eyes wide open.  Dean lets his fingers trail down Cas’s cheek, down the line of his jaw.  There’s beard there, now, soft under his touch.

He traces Cas’s eyebrows with a finger, first one and then the other, and Cas’s stillness breaks; he shivers. Dean runs his finger down Cas’s nose, and he blinks, once, twice, and pulls back a little from Dean’s hands.

“You okay, buddy?” he asks.  

Cas glances at him, uncertain. Still darkly suspicious.  ”It’s…  _nice.”_

Dean can’t help but laugh.  “Well, it’s supposed to be,” he answers.  He moves his fingers more slowly, running his fingertips over the crow’s feet at the corners of Cas’s eyes, down to the dark hollows under his eyes; lets his fingers wander across Cas’s cheek down to trace the lines beside his mouth, and finally Cas closes his eyes, leaning into Dean’s hands.

Dean lets his hands go still for a moment.  ”You like this?” he asks, quiet, and instead of answering Cas turns his face into Dean’s palm.  

No one’s ever touched Cas like this, kind and gentle and loving, not as someone’s child or friend or lover.  Cas doesn’t even know it’s okay to  _like_ being touched like this.  Dean lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

He touches the hair falling down in Cas’s eyes briefly, puts his hand on the back of Cas’s head and pulls him closer, and Cas goes where Dean guides him until it’s Dean’s mouth that’s moving over Cas’s face, leaving lingering soft kisses all over those laugh-lines and crow’s feet and cheekbones, Cas’s nose and forehead and the lids of his eyes.  

Dean feels a huff of breath in his ear, feels Cas’s mouth move against his cheek in what just might be Cas’s first smile since the day he fell, and he thinks maybe that list wasn’t bullshit after all.


End file.
